IndyCar car on track at Portland International Raceway during the Grand Prix of Portland

Portland 1997: Indy Car's Closest Road Course Finish

August 03, 2026

This is the Happy Hour Racing IndyCar Race Recap. There was no IndyCar race in the last week, so instead of going dark we are looking back at the closest road course finish in Indy car history, run at the same track the series visits this Sunday.

The Short Version

On June 22, 1997, Mark Blundell beat Gil de Ferran by 0.027 seconds at Portland International Raceway. Raul Boesel was third, 0.055 seconds back. Almost thirty years later those are still the closest finishes ever recorded on an Indy car road or street course, for both the top two and the top three. IndyCar returns to Portland this Sunday, August 9, so this is the week to remember how wild that place can get.

Why We Are Looking Back This Week

The IndyCar schedule had an open weekend. The last race was Nashville on July 20, where Alex Palou won again and pushed his championship lead to 83 points. The next one is the OnlyBulls Grand Prix of Portland on Sunday, August 9, green flag at 4:00 PM ET. That is round 13 of 18, with six races left after this one. You can see the rest of the season and the current points on the IndyCar Series schedule and standings page.

Portland is worth a proper look. Indy cars raced there 24 times between 1984 and 2007, disappeared for eleven years, then came back in 2018. The track has produced more close finishes than almost anywhere else on the calendar, and the 1997 race is the one that still sits at the top of the list.

Rain, Slicks, and One Gamble

The 1997 Budweiser/G.I. Joe's 200 was 78 laps around the 1.969-mile road course. It started in heavy rain. Cars spun off all over the place early, the field bunched up, and nobody could get any real rhythm going.

Then the track started to dry. That is where the race was won. Mark Blundell, driving the No. 18 Mercedes-powered Reynard for PacWest Racing, came in and took slick tires. Gil de Ferran stayed out on wets in his Honda-powered Reynard. On a drying track that is the whole ballgame. Wets go away fast once the water is gone, and slicks only get better.

Blundell gained six positions in the last ten laps. He was not saving anything. He came out of the last restart hunting de Ferran down the road, and by the time they got to the front straight on the final lap he was close enough to do something about it.

Mark Blundell, the driver who won the 1997 Indy car race at Portland by 0.027 seconds — Mark Blundell, who took the slick-tire gamble that won Portland in 1997. Photo: United Autosports, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Three Wide to the Stripe

De Ferran led onto the front straight and started to celebrate early. Blundell pulled alongside him. Boesel came charging up behind both of them in a Ford-powered Reynard, and for a second all three cars were side by side heading for the line.

Blundell got the nose of his car past de Ferran's right at the stripe. Nobody in the grandstands knew who had won. Neither did the winner. Blundell said afterward, "I didn't know that I'd won the race."

It was PacWest Racing's first Indy car victory.

CART 1997 - Portland
Mark Blundell / Jimmy Vasser#indycar #cart #portland pic.twitter.com/xG17qHK0R9
— History In Indy (@historyinindy) December 18, 2015

The Margins That Still Stand

Here is what that afternoon produced, and what Portland has done before and since.

The 1986 race is the other one people still bring up. Mario Andretti beat his own son Michael by 0.070 seconds on Father's Day after Michael's car could not pick up the last seven gallons of fuel in the tank. Portland does this kind of thing.

What It Means for Sunday

Alex Palou comes in with 457 points and five wins. David Malukas is second on 374, Kyle Kirkwood third on 370, Christian Lundgaard fourth on 353, and Pato O'Ward fifth on 336. Palou has won Portland twice already, in 2021 and 2023, and he clinched his third straight championship there last August.

BACK-TO-BACK-TO-BACK 🏆

Alex Palou clinches his third straight #AstorCup at @Race_Portland! pic.twitter.com/pbqiMcprKk
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) August 10, 2025

The name to watch is Will Power. He has won three of the last seven Portland races, including the last two, and he owns the place. He is also having a rough first season at Andretti Global in the No. 26 car, sitting 14th on 220 points with no wins. If there is one track on the schedule where that turns around, it is this one.

Portland is also a strategy race, which is why finishes get close there. Fuel windows, a first-lap funnel into the Festival Curves that regularly collects cars, and a long front straight that lets a car with better exit off the last corner get a run. Add rain, which the Pacific Northwest is happy to supply, and the tire call becomes the race again. That is exactly what happened to Blundell and de Ferran in 1997.

The Bottom Line

Portland has produced the two closest road course finishes in Indy car history, 0.027 and 0.070 seconds, and both came down to something outside the driver's hands. A tire gamble in 1997. A fuel pickup in 1986. Six races are left in 2026 and Palou has an 83-point cushion, so if anybody is going to make this title fight interesting, a chaotic Portland afternoon is the kind of place it starts.

What is your favorite Portland finish, the 1997 three-wide drag race or Mario beating Michael on Father's Day in 1986? Tell us in the comments.